Where Winds Meet is a wuxia, open-world game focused on the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms era of Chinese history. This martial arts-focused MMORPG includes complex fighting systems, mini-games with a lot of depth, and a massive map to get lost in. There is a whole rich world out there to discover, and it’s filled with lore, real history, enemies to fight, and friends to make.
Where Winds Meet is available for PC, PS5, and mobile for free.
Story – Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms China
The story follows a youthful hero type who is about to go on the journey of a lifetime. Raised in a small village in China, you have been raised by your “Uncle” Jiang and “Aunt” Han, both martial arts masters that have taught you to fight. But your Uncle has been missing for several years, and his house is in disrepair. Where has he gone and why hasn’t he returned home?
A screenshot of the main character of Where Winds Meet meditating.
The world is set in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms era of Chinese history, and it a wuxia game. It heavily focuses on martial arts, collecting different types of ways to attack, defend, and heal, and exploration. The story is massive and sprawling, covering a lot of land containing a bunch of NPCs, includes a lot of fighting, spying, and even being tricked by those who don’t want to see a hero rise from the chaos.
A Huge World Filled With People
Where Winds Meet is a massive world that feels incredibly real. There are hundreds of NPCs wandering around, and you can chat with them. They go to sleep at night and mill about during the day. There are world bosses with histories, martial arts masters and apprentices that want to battle you, patients to heal, puppet shows to watch, and people to argue with.
The map isn’t like the massive-yet-empty maps of some RPGs, but a world that has a lot going on in it. The land was filled with so much to do that it was incredibly overwhelming at first. Once you get used to the complex menuing, the huge map, and all the mini games, however, the world begins to feel real.
And Choices Matter, Right?
One of the big selling points, according to the developers of Where Winds Meet is the fact that your choices matter. You can steal, pillage, murder, and even spend some time in jail, or you can be the world’s biggest hero, helping out the locals, and becoming the good person you were always meant to be.
Hanging off of tree after running up it.
This is both a plus and a let down in some ways; it’s always nice to have some choices in games that seem to make a difference, but the choices aren’t really compelling. You can choose between being comically evil or heroic, and there don’t seem to be a whole lot of choices in between those things; it feels a little bit like Mass Effect in that way.
It’s fairly easy rack up goodwill points with the villagers, meaning you can steal a few horses before it will begin to change your reputation. It was interesting to be able to choose to be a big jerk, but the vast majority of players aren’t interested in being the bad guy in a story.
Gameplay – A Banquet of Playstyles to Choose From
Where Winds Meet is mostly focused on combat. The fighting is fluid, graceful, and gorgeously choreographed, and comes in a ton of different varieties. There is melee combat with swords, staves, and fans; you can also choose ranged combat with bows and arrows. It’s fast and fluid to toggle between them, as the controller or keyboard gives you a quick swap button between two different fighting styles and your bow.
Each of the different types of weapons corresponds to a different fighting style as well. For example, the Thundercry Blade is a Tank spec that is focused around a thick, heavy blade that is slower to move. The Inkwell Fan is a Ranged DPC spec that gives you a sharpened fan similar to Katana from Mortal Kombat. There are also healer builds, and a variety of other weapons to choose from.
The combat is really well-paced, and you can play it on Story or Standard mode; Story mode gives you a slow-motion quick-time event button to dodge attacks so you can learn how dodging works and the timing of it. With Standard, you need to rely on your own sense of the flow of combat to know when to slide out of the way of attacks. There is a lot to like about the combat, but it does take a bit of getting used to.
A epic battle in the story.
Some sweet details that have been included in Where Winds Meet are the many mini games. There is a Chinese version of chess, two different deckbuilding card games, duels, fishing, drinking contests, and more. They add a surprising amount of depth to the land, giving you things to do with NPCs that aren’t just chatting or fighting.
They all have unique artwork, different types of play, and interesting rules that have a lot of thought put into them. None of the mini games felt thrown in or underdeveloped; there is a lot to enjoy without even doing the story.
But one of the coolest things is just exploring the world with your Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon-style movements. You get to wuxia-move all over the place, running up cliffs, triple jumping, flying through the air, and making moves that the swiftest of real humans are not capable of.
It’s a heady mix of magic and martial arts that gives all the movement a floaty feel, though in a good way. The jumping and flying do take quite a bit of time to get used to, but once you do, it’s pure joy to tumble around the map like an anime ninja.
A puzzle out in the world.
There are some issues with the tutorials, however. A great way to explain this is through the mini games; there is only one or two locations that trigger a tutorial, and you are not very likely to come across one of those particular instances first. For example, the first healing mini game you are likely to come across would most likely be one of the several in the starting area.
However, the tutorial is in a location to the west that doesn’t even show up on the starting map area. The same can be said for the gabbing mini game; the first one you come across is really challenging and is located in one of the first areas you will explore while the tutorial is far to the west.
A Focus On Multiplayer
While there is a massive Solo campaign that can be completed basically alone, there are also two different types of multiplayer. There is an MMORPG aspect that puts you in a server with a bunch of other people to battle against, heal, meet, and play games against. Then, there is a private server-type multiplayer where you can invite up to three friends to your world to play together. Either way, you will need to do some things with others, including the raids, some world events, and having others healing you from broken bones and such.
Some Unfortunate Bugs
It’s hard to talk about the gameplay of Where Winds Meet without bringing up the catalogue of bugs that show up. It’s pretty surprising that an eleven-month-old game has this many visual bugs and places where it can crash. There is a bug in the current version that crashes the game completely if you try to exit out of a mini game in the middle or just do something the game doesn’t expect while in a mini game.
There is a movement bug if you jump down a hole that has a ladder; it kind of freezes your avatar in a floating animation for several seconds. There have been several times when the game also froze when a world boss killed the main character. A few of the dungeons and interactions didn’t work at all.
Petting a kitten in Where Winds Meet.
The biggest issue with the game as it stands, however, is the translation. The English is decent most of the time; you can certainly understand what everyone is trying to say, but some of it is not. There are some tutorial sections that are incomprehensible, and a few places where the game isn’t translated at all.
Since it is in Early Access at time of writing, the missing English voice lines were acceptable, but the missing translations were a little less so. Where Winds Meet has a ton of menus, a lot of complex, interconnected things, and a ton of tutorials, so it’s imperative to be able to understand all the pieces.
It should be noted that as Where Winds Meet is currently in Early Access, these issues apply to the current state of the game and may be resolved in the full release or a future update.
Graphics & Audio – Gorgeous and Thematic
Where Winds Meet is a beautiful game filled with beautiful locations. Everything from the avatars and outfits to the towns are so pretty, and in spite of looking the way it does, it still runs pretty well on modern machines. The music feels authentic for the time, and the sound design is absolutely stunning.
Each fall of your footsteps on different materials makes different, realistic noises, and the world feels alive with bird sounds, the buzz of insects, people speaking, and more. A good portion of the game has voice acting in both Chinese and English, making the experience of this game an incredibly immersive experience.
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- Combat has some pretty neat moves in Where Winds Meet.
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- Chatting with a local.
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- A vista in the world of Where Winds Meet.
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- Playing the flute along the water.
This game was reviewed on PC with a key provided by NetEase.
